Saturday, February 9, 2019

Saluting Milwaukee Riverkeeper for Great Lakes advocacy vs. Foxconn diversion

I was pleased to see this tweet from the water advocates at Milwaukee Riverkeeper:

ICYMI: There's been a whirlwind of flip-flopping news from this past week, but our message remains the same. The DNR's approval of Racine's request to divert Lake Michigan water violates the & sets a dangerous precedent. >>>
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The Great Lakes Compact was designed as a joint US-Canada water conservation and management agreement which allowed limited, last-resort diversion exceptions for public purposes, not to serve business initiatives, special interests or development schemes.

The Great Lakes are managed as a public trust, and are not a commodity to be 'managed' for private gain.

The Walker-directed, 'chamber of commerce mentality' Wisconsin DNR erred when it pushed through a Lake Michigan diversion to principally serve proposed Foxconn manufacturing now seriously in doubt.

The DNR's decision is under challenge; it's good to read that Gov. Evers is having the Walker-free DNR review the diversion, and air pollution permit approvals, too.

More about the air permits and diversion approval, here.

More about the challenge, here, filed by Midwest Environmental Advocates, on behalf of:
 League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Riverkeeper, Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, and River Alliance of Wisconsin.
There is also a Wisconsin-based coalition monitoring Compact implementation:
Wisconsin DNR’s approval of the City of Racine’s diversion disregards and unreasonably interprets a core Compact requirement that all water transferred out of the Great Lakes Basin must be used for public water supply purposes, clearly defined as “serving a group of largely residential customers.” Of significance, Racine’s diversion application identified no amount of transferred water (0 gallons) that would be used to supply residential customers in the out-of-basin area subject to the diversion request. 
A 20-month Foxconn archive is here.

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